


Undiscovered First

by Blackcat413



Category: Pocket Monsters | Pokemon - All Media Types, Pokemon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers of Time & Explorers of Darkness & Explorers of Sky
Genre: Aegis Cave, But the journey is what’s important, F/M, Gen, If you’ve played the game... you know how this will end, Slow Burn, explorers prequel because i dont know how to stop my suffering, grovyle/hero, this is my fix-it that doesn't actually fix anything, will adjust tags as they apply
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-10
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 23:00:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27984219
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Blackcat413/pseuds/Blackcat413
Summary: In the wake of the Temporal Tower incident, Alana and Grovyle live worlds apart. But that is after. Long, long after.What about before, in the dark future? What kept them alive, inexorably bound together on the path to changing history?A story, told until the moment they are ripped apart.
Relationships: Juptile | Grovyle & Player Character (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon), Juptile | Grovyle/Player Character (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon)
Comments: 2
Kudos: 3





	1. Internal Clock, Municipal Orrery

**Author's Note:**

> https://open.spotify.com/playlist/56Vx3hKBicxNmcoZtZ1x0I?si=rdOiGKs8SRCaW98poEL4jw
> 
> Here is the YouTube version if it’s easier for anyone 
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxd6ZuyPhiwk-eiagYLehZ5aWlPPOWi2p

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note: I am fully Seazer trash and this story has his influence all over it. I am using songs from various Revolutionary Girl Utena OSTs and later Seazer albums as emblematic tracks for each chapter (separate from the playlist I compiled for the story). You don't have to listen to the songs or understand their meaning (which is altogether debatable anyway), but I'm adding a stanza at the end of each chapter. It's entirely up to you how much you want to engage with them, but they're there.

She keeps an oil lamp. 

It was a gift from Celebi, actually: a memento from their first meeting. Oil being the scarcity it is, she’s careful with it. But it’s worth it then, because with its tiny yellow light Alana sees everything in green and brown and blue (and, in Celebi’s case, pink).

It only takes a little bit. There’s potential in those colors, like they can be brought out further with just a little more, a little more, perpetually. Like if the sun would shine again (and _that’s_ a thought) everyone would be able to see the brightness of the world.

 _What would a bright world be like_? It seems an impossible fairytale, a childish dream she can’t comprehend. Grovyle thinks it’d be the most magnificent thing he’d ever see. 

And Alana hasn’t quite given up on it yet, either.

~

Alana steps back with a theatrical flourish, granting him passage into the little cabin. “It’s nice, isn’t it? C’mon, admit it’s nice.” She bends down to his level, grinning cheekily all the while.

It’s small, but she’s put considerable effort into finding it for them. Despite his aloofness, surely even _he_ has to recognize that.

Grovyle rolls his eyes. “Yes, it’s nice.” 

She beams under the praise, dropping her bags on the floor in the nearest corner. There’s a fireplace and not much else. However, waiting for them is a bundle of blankets in a heap. Some were a gift from Ditto, and the rest were the ones she’d preemptively moved from their old encampment when she went up ahead to ask Ditto for this favor. Her little trip had borne fruit, because they obliged, and lent the pair this cabin as a place to stay while they researched the Time Gear mystery. 

Alana gives the blankets an appraising eye. “We ought to go through these soon,” she mutters, almost to herself.

“Yes.” Grovyle skims over the top of the pile, holding up a blanket woven from what looks like genuine Mareep wool. “Ditto was quite generous to give us these. We have to thank them properly.”

“Oh, definitely,” Alana agrees. “Hopefully we don’t need to be here long, though. I know it’s pretty small, and it kind of sticks out, but it’s the best I could do under the circumstances. I’m not sure how long we’ll be able to stay unnoticed; I don’t know very much about the pokemon around here. Ditto said we’d be safe, but…”

“I wouldn’t be worried, then. They’re knowledgeable about the happenings around this mountain. Besides, there aren’t many non-native pokemon that could get through the jungle, even if trouble were to come looking for us,” he reassures her.

“You’re probably right. I’ve already investigated the surrounding area, and it seems like as long we don’t go too far into the mountain caves, we’ll be fine. Although we may have to in order to do what we came here to do…”

“Why? Did they say anything about it?”

“No.” She begins shedding her armor, laying all the leather strips aside in an out-of-the-way corner.

“Let’s just focus on one thing at a time,” Grovyle says. “First, rest. Ditto should be coming by in a few hours, right?”

“Yep. They said to take our time and sleep once we got here, so I don’t think it’ll be for a while. What about your trip? Did you get any leads?” 

She yawns, starting to pick blankets. She bundles up the three he likes and sets them to the side. She finds hers and settles in near the fireplace. 

He takes the blankets she laid aside for him and begins making his own space. “Yes, actually. I found a library. It’s completely abandoned and at the end of a dungeon; everything in it is written in Unown.”

_“Everything?”_

“As far as I checked. There was a peculiar puzzle, too; I had to collect runestones with certain letters on them…the library was worth it, though, even if I can’t altogether read the language.”

“Hmm. I’m better with Unown than you are. We can go look together after we leave this place.” She closes her eyes, already tired enough to sleep. _That’s our next lead, if Ditto doesn’t end up helping us along._

Grovyle settles in beside her, blocking the light of the fireplace, and then all is still.

  
  


She wakes once the fire has burnt down to embers. There’s an extra blanket thrown over her, and she almost doesn’t even want to get up, but she does. Grovyle’s awake, of course, busying himself with sorting his bag.

“Don’t think you’ll need that,” Alana mumbles by way of greeting. “As far as I know, there’s no dungeon nearby in the direction we’re going.”

“Even still.” He plucks an apple from a side compartment and sniffs it. Deeming it acceptable, he tosses it to her. “It pays to be prepared.”

She goes out around the back of the house and fills the tub, then washes herself and her clothes. For a second she thinks she forgot the Drought Orb in her bag, but it’s in her pocket, right where she left it. _Don’t want you drying up my water before I’m done with it,_ she muses, and then wrings out her clothes before using it. A bright flash of light, and then all the excess water evaporates into steam, curling up into the dark sky. She never could figure out if there was a way to make it rain outside of a dungeon. The clouds haven’t moved since the day they were frozen.

By the time she’s done, all that’s left to do is wait. There’s a pile of scarves on the floor that they scavenged from the jungle’s dungeon on the way here; she’s always been shit at sewing, but she’s better than he is. She could probably make something out of them.

“Defense Scarf,” she confirms, sifting through the generous pile of material. “We don’t need all this. We could probably sell it to a Kecleon.”

“I thought the same, but seeing as it’s better to avoid dungeons altogether, there’s no telling when we might get another chance for free stuff.”

 _This one’s black._ She only has a couple of shirts, but luckily scarves are easy enough to come by; she wraps it around her neck and tucks it into the back of her cape.

They planned on staying here for a bit, and there was really no reason _not_ to if Ditto was sheltering them by their own watch; Alana forces herself to relax for once, and try to think ahead. 

If she analyzes the facts, it goes like this: One, Ditto has information about the Time Gear mystery. That by itself is incredibly valuable, because so far only Celebi has been able to help them with that at all (It was Celebi’s guidance, after all, that had boosted the Time Gears up from a myth to reality). Two, they’re an incredibly powerful pokemon, if not in sheer brawn. Ditto has been around for a long time, maybe even longer than the planet was paralyzed: although how, she can’t even begin to guess. Three, they’ve offered Alana and Grovyle a place to stay for the time being. Even if they _are_ just paying off an old debt to Alana’s tribe, it gives the pair somewhere to lay down while they plan their next move. No matter how she looks at it, this can only be a good thing.

“Ditto’s here,” Grovyle says, which snaps her out of her plotting. She casts her eyes out the small window of the cottage and indeed sees Ditto, wearing the form of an Absol. That, at least, is the same; when she first met them on Frozen Island, this was the form they’d taken then as well.

“It’s nice to see you again,” Alana says when she opens the door for them. 

“The same to you,” they reply, inclining their head towards her. There are real Absol on Frozen Island; she’d seen many of them growing up, and there’s nothing about Ditto’s appearance that gives them away as anything different.

“Ditto.” Grovyle appears beside her, introducing himself. “I’m Grovyle, Alana’s partner.”

“It’s nice to meet you. And please, think nothing of it. The Southern Ninetales tribe were very courteous to me when I needed it, and as far as I’m concerned, one of theirs is always welcome in my domain. That, of course, goes for you too, Grovyle.”

The blue Ninetales of Frozen Island had adopted a human child—Alana. She’d been found by one of them taking a trip to the mainland, in a basket full of clothes on the bank of Lake Afar. She was brought home, named, and taken care of. Raised by the tribe, she met Ditto in her adolescence, and they studied the energy readings from the ice together whenever Ditto visited Frozen Island. As a result, Ditto’s sporadic periods of mentorship to her sparked an enduring friendliness between them—a bond she’s grateful for, especially now.

“Now,” Ditto begins. “I know you two have some questions about the Time Gears. Let’s hear them. I warn you, though, I may not be able to answer all of it.”

Alana nods and takes a deep breath, falling into the familiar yet careful impartiality of a scientific report. “We know the basics from what Celebi and my tribe have told me—that Time Gears were once used to keep time flowing correctly throughout the world, and that they originated on Temporal Tower—but the rest, like the location of the Time Gears themselves, is unknown to us. Where are they, if they even still exist, and how many are there?

“We know that there would have been multiple Gears working to keep time in order, but what went wrong to make the world like this? And why is Temporal Tower in such disrepair?”

Grovyle finishes for her. “In short, we need all the information we can get. There’s so much we don’t know, even with Celebi as an informant, and she’s capable of _time travel_.”

“Hmm.” Ditto doesn’t say anything immediately, just walks to the fireplace and lays down on the opposite side of their sleeping spots. Grovyle and Alana exchange glances and follow suit, sitting down.

Once they’re settled and attentive, Ditto holds both of their gazes in turn, and Alana is reminded of just how steely her teacher can be. “What is it exactly that you’re trying to do?”

They’d prepared for this question, thought of every answer they could possibly give and every response they could possibly receive. She takes a deep breath, again. “We want to fix this. This- this endless world of darkness. We believe it’s possible, if we can understand and harness the power of the Time Gears. Dialga created them to maintain time. Surely, with that as their function, there’s a way to restore time as well.”

She sounds more confident than she feels; in truth, their theory isn’t so fleshed out.

Ditto blinks red eyes slowly, absorbing this information. Then, very calmly, they ask: “Have you considered the possibilities if this plan of yours succeeds?”

Alana glances uneasily to Grovyle, who she can tell is thinking the same thing. _Of course we’ve considered it. But we don’t know what will happen._

“What exactly are you implying?” Grovyle asks.

“If you were to change history—to make time move again—you would effectively be erasing this world.” A pause. “And everyone in it.”

Alana leans back on her hands and lets the words sink in, staring at the ceiling. “I’ve thought of that,” she says lowly, and struggles to keep her voice even. Her hands are shaking, and not from the weight she’s putting on them. 

“We don’t know if that’s true,” Grovyle counters. “If we just gather the Time Gears up here and restore the Tower with them—however that’s done—we can just do it in the present, without changing history at all. Nobody said we had to _go back in time.”_

Ditto shakes their head. “It’s a noble theory, but for it to work at all, you’d have to go back to the past and fix it preemptively. Once the planet has been paralyzed, there’s no reversing it.”

“How do you know?” Grovyle presses, with an edge of desperation.

“Because I’ve been alive for a long, long time.” They stand up and walk to the door. “Give it some thought, you two. If you really want to change history, I’ll help you.” 

Their eyes sweep over her and then him, sharp and calculating. “Meet me in Limestone Cavern, where the path splits, if you still want answers. If you decide this isn’t worth it…well, you’re welcome to stay here or go home.” They morph into a Lucario and open the door. “In the end, you’re the only ones who can decide what you want.”

Ditto closes the door behind them.

  
  


Limestone Cavern, as it turns out, is a Mystery Dungeon. Sequestered in the pocket of the mountain, it’s a rather open cave, and not very well-hidden.

After Ditto left, Alana took out her little sewing kit and worked on stitching up the clothes that she’d gotten from the dungeon. There was really no question; of course they’d follow Ditto and see what they had to say. They’d come too far to turn back when answers were in sight.

They brace themselves at the mouth of the cave, the imposing jut of the mountain staring back at them. “Are you ready?” Grovyle asks. 

“Let’s go.”

Limestone Cavern, as far as dungeons go, is not all that intimidating. It’s dark, of course, and full of water, but the pokemon there aren’t overly strong. The pools are deep enough that she has to wade, and she’s waterlogged before long. _I wish I could dry this whole place up with a Drought Orb, but it wouldn’t last more than a floor, and I need them all for laundry anyway._

Grovyle, of course, forges on without complaint. She’d be surprised if he didn’t. So she doesn’t complain either, out of sheer stubbornness, even when they’re attacked by hordes of angry bug pokemon. She feels bad about swatting them down, because she _knows_ they were probably rational once. They just… couldn’t stand living in this eternal darkness. And she can’t really blame them. If her home was a dungeon, she’d probably go insane too.

A few set of chiseled staircases later, and well within the mountain, they hit a peculiar snag.

It’s relatively quiet; the swarms have quieted down, and she can sense they’re reaching a checkpoint soon. The fork that Ditto was talking about is probably coming up. Even the pools of water that were plaguing them have receded, few and far between now, and they can walk pretty comfortably on solid rock.

Grovyle speaks up, startling in the unbroken silence. “Hey, Alana.” 

She can tell by his tone alone that something is _wrong;_ her neck prickles as soon as he says it. “Why,” he begins, deliberately slowly, “is there water dripping from the ceiling?”

She freezes, and at once she can see it. She feels like an idiot for not noticing immediately. On either side of the rock wall around them, water is streaming down in rivulets. 

“I…don’t know.” _How could that happen? If there’s no outside force affecting it…_

She pulls her lantern out of her bag, fumbles with lighting it, but gets it to work. She swings it up, high above her head, and it illuminates the ceiling clearly: water is coming down from cracks, landing in sparse droplets all around. She holds out her other hand in wonder; one of the droplets lands in her open palm. 

She marvels at it for a second before she feels something like electricity racing through her body. It happens almost too fast to register, shock radiating from that one point of contact through her entire nervous system.

A hot flash all over. Sweat. Her head goes woozy. She stumbles to the wall, trying to steady herself on it with her hand, but only succeeds in clawing it on the way down. Her shoulder hits the wall heavily, violently. Her feet have no weight. Her legs are like lead.

A loud exclamation from beside her. “Are you alright? Alana!”

Delayed, she registers touch—Grovyle catching her by her other arm and setting her on the floor. Her ears won’t stop ringing, and it’s so loud. So loud. Her eyes drift closed.

_“....ala...an...you...h..r...me?...ay...omething…”_

Maybe if she just rests…

_Her eyes open of their own accord. There’s something pushing against her face, freezing, dry and wet at the same time, like frozen air, but moving. Water in droplets? She feels them stinging in her hair. She tries to rub her eyes, but her hands are numb and cold._

_“Finally! A Time Gear!”_

_She sees a flash of blue above a dimly-lit forest path. Grovyle is there—he must be a little farther along the path—she’s not scared. He is fine. She’ll be fine, too._

_She can’t see the Time Gear, only its glow, but she hears twigs snap and goes to follow him ahead. Why did he go before her? She takes one step, then another—_

The hot flash disappears, but her nausea does not. Head clearing, she blinks the spots out of her eyes as rapidly as she can. She hadn’t realized Grovyle was crouching, rifling through his bag. “I’m fine,” she splutters out. “What _was_ that?”

“Hang on, don’t move yet. I’ll find some medicine. What happened?”

She sits up, ignoring his protests and her throbbing skull. “I heard your voice. You said you’d found a Time Gear; it must’ve been a dream. But I _swear_ it wasn’t! It was so vivid, like I was right there.” 

She’s aware that she doesn’t sound right, still disoriented. “Drink this,” he says gently, and presses a water skin into her hand. “You only passed out for a second. I was worried you’d gotten poisoned by something back there.”

She downs it all in one go and feels a little better. “I don’t think it’s poison. But it was really weird. It happened when I touched that droplet. I got all hot like I was having a bout of something, and then I was somewhere else—a forest—and there was water falling from the sky.”

He gestures for her to go on.  
“It felt like the rain you sometimes get in dungeons, but it was so much more intense. It _hurt_. And it was coming down really hard, almost like someone was dumping individual buckets of water on me. I don’t know, it was dark.” She sits back against the wall, water soaking into her cape.

Grovyle takes in the information, pensive, one talon resting against his chin. “We should ask Ditto about it. Maybe there’s something special about this place that causes visions like that.”

“Alright.” She drags herself up off the floor and finds she’s not tired.

They walk the rest of the way, which is not much. She avoids the water around her warily, but doesn’t have another one of those visions (she doesn’t quite know how to feel about that). They come out into a wider cavern with a fork, just as Ditto had indicated. 

Alana looks around, noting the two gigantic paths that opened up away from the middle. “Do you think we’re supposed to pick one?”

Ditto’s voice echoes from somewhere. “That won’t be necessary.” Simultaneously, they both look for the source of Ditto’s voice, but neither of them can find it. Then, in front of her eyes, Ditto emerges from the wall bisecting the fork. They’ve shed the appearances they wore earlier, and now appear in their true form: an unassuming little purple blob, complete with dotted eyes and a thin mouth.

“That’s—that’s solid stone,” Grovyle says, since Alana is too gobsmacked to speak.

“It actually isn’t.” Ditto turns their nebulous body in gesture to the wall. “Come. It’s not dangerous.”

With little fanfare, they follow Ditto into the deepest reaches of the cave. Alana has questions. Grovyle does too, if the tension in his jaw is anything to go by. _What is this place, and why did they ask us to come all the way out here? Where are we_ going?

“I’m not being needlessly mysterious,” Ditto says from ahead, as if reading her mind. She flinches. “I promise this will all make sense when we arrive.”

This area, at least, is deserted—no pokemon come jumping out at them, or attack in swarms. It’s deathly silent, except for the disconcertingly new feeling of water dripping from the ceiling. Alana can’t get used to it. There’s a buzzing in the air, as if it were alive. Nothing on the outside has ever felt like this.

Up ahead, there’s a red light. It’s so bright and painful on her eyes, she has to squint. It’s oddly reminiscent of the one from her vision, barring that it’s the wrong color. 

“Grovyle,” she says quietly.

“You may have already guessed what this is,” Ditto says. Alana’s palms begin to itch and immediately, she breaks out into a nervous sweat. Grovyle, beside her, is alight with nerves; internally she chortles, knowing that if Ditto weren’t here, he’d have broken out into a run towards it already.

And then, when they finally reach the end of the cavern, she can see it.

The Time Gear.

It’s…not what she pictured. Cradled in the blue basin, it washes the entire room in eerie red light. It’s shaped like a gear, of course, with a hexagonal hollow in the center. Light veins run through its six notches and pulsate with an angry glow. The light is almost gory, true red, deep and bright like a sliced artery.

“Now do you see?” Ditto asks. “This is what I’ve been protecting. Since before the planet was paralyzed, I’ve been here, guarding the Time Gear. It feels wrong, doesn’t it? Originally, it was blue.”

“I don’t understand…” Alana whispers. “What’s wrong with it?”

“it’s corrupted,” Ditto explains. “It started to change as time slowed down, getting more and more discolored over time. By the time I realized that it was sick, it was too late. I couldn’t contact Master Dialga. Temporal Tower had crumbled, and he was no longer sane; his henchmen turned me away at the gate.

“I thought about moving it. Taking it with me. Destroying it, even. But I didn’t want to take the risk, not when I didn’t know what would happen if I touched it. When it still functioned, I knew that if I moved it, then time would stop in this area. But now that it’s like this…” they trailed off.

She thinks she understands. What would she do, in that situation, if any decision she made had the potential to ruin time forever?

“Alana had a vision,” Grovyle says, inclining his head towards her. “On the way here. It’s probably better if she tells you about it.”

She shakes her head. “There wasn’t much. I saw the glow of a Time Gear, but it was blue, like you said. I didn’t see the Gear itself; it was surrounded by trees. The thing I don’t understand is _why._ I’ve never had visions like that before. My tribe tried to teach me some of the psychic powers that are inherent to their species, but I’m human. I just…never had the gift. So why now, and why here?”

“One of those questions is easy,” Ditto answers. “The Time Gears are powerful artifacts, and it’s likely that being near one—although why it chose you and not Grovyle or me, I don’t know—can trigger latent psychic abilities. Or maybe the Gear is reaching out to you, specifically, and giving you information that you need for your quest.

“There are five that I know of, but there could be more. Master Dialga never said. I was appointed here a very long time ago, back, of course, when time still flowed enough to measure things by it. It was Dialga who gave me immortality, in exchange for watching one of his Gears. Of the others, three reside in lakes, one for each. The fourth…well. The Northern Ninetales tribe—your sister tribe, Alana—lives there now. Though I’m not sure how much they know, since they weren’t there from the beginning.”

She can only process a little of this information at a time (she’s never met her sister tribe), but one thing does stick out. “They’re in _lakes_? There’s a lake right near Frozen Island!” She turns to Grovyle, who looks deep in thought. “Was it right under our noses the whole time?”

“I wouldn’t be so hasty,” says Ditto. “I don’t know their exact location, but I know all the lakes were supposed to be well-hidden. I don’t think Dialga would’ve put a Time Gear at the bottom of any old lake.”

“The library,” Grovyle suggests, finally speaking up. “It’s ancient. I bet there’s some secret information there.”

“Oh?” Ditto prompts, intrigued. “Are you talking about Aegis?”

Grovyle’s head whips toward them, surprised. “So you know of it as well?”

“I’ve never been, but yes. There is a trove of old knowledge there that was discovered before the paralysis. It’s fallen into obscurity by now, but it once garnered enough interest to warrant an entire expedition through the dungeon.”

“Oh.” Alana is crestfallen. “So do you think anything relevant to us has already been picked over?”

Grovyle shakes his head. “I don’t think so. It was _huge._ It’d take forever to catalog a library that big, and from the looks of it, nobody’s ever done the work.” He turns to Ditto. “There’s one more thing. Do you know the names of the lake guardians?”

“I do. Their names are Mesprit, Uxie, and Azelf, and they look largely alike. They have grey bodies, a little larger than mine, and two tails. Mesprit has a pink crest, Uxie, yellow, and Azelf, blue,” Ditto describes.   
“So it’s settled then. We’re going to the library next, to try and figure out more about the location of these lakes, and also about your visions,” Grovyle says. “Sound good?”

“Works for me.”

“A moment, please,” Ditto says in a stern voice, and Alana is instantly reminded of her mentorship under them from long ago. “Are you two absolutely sure you want to do this? Do you remember our conversation from earlier?”

 _What, the fact that this research could have irreversible consequences and that we don’t truly know what will happen if we go through with it?_ She knows better than to snark to Ditto. Alana and Grovyle exchange a look. “I’m sure,” he confirms, still looking at her. 

“I am too. We’ve already made our decision, and now we finally have a lead, thanks to you. We wouldn’t have gotten this far without your help.” 

Ditto shapeshifts into a Ninetales, and a pang of homesickness hits her. “I’m proud of you, Alana,” they say. “I always knew you’d do great things. You were a brilliant child, always asking the right questions. I’m glad that my chosen path has brought me to you.”

She tries to keep her eyes from watering. “I’m not all that,” she mutters, throat constricting too much for her to speak much louder.

“So you say,” Ditto counters wryly, and headbutts her. She hugs them for a while, burying her tears in their fur while they wrap their tails protectively around her.

When they pull away, Grovyle—to his credit—speaks gently for once. “Ready to go?” 

“Yeah.” Alana wipes her face with the back of her hand and draws her cloak tightly around her body. “I’m ready.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> From ancient cities to me...  
> Ending on that day, the 24-hour clock.  
> The sun showing at noon...  
> ...and at night, the moon.  
> Our natural 24-hour clock.
> 
> -from Internal Clock, Municipal Orrery by J.A. Seazer  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_QFFWPgKII


	2. Inhuman Illusory Soul Fusion Magic

“Children, before you go,” Ditto says. “There’s a clan of Lairon and Aggron that make their home in this mountain. We’ve been on good terms for generations, but they don’t take very well to strangers. I’ll walk you out.”

And so they leave together, and make their way through the caverns without incident. They don’t run into anyone, but Alana spies the tunnels of eaten-through rock on the cliffside (it’s a wonder the whole mountain hasn’t already collapsed). It’s easy, too, to imagine being haplessly run down by an entire vengeful clan for trespassing. Her tribe never did things that way, but she can imagine why some would. _It’s so dark. Nothing is certain, except the darkness. Why wouldn’t they cling to the little safety they have, and defend it to the death?_

They part ways at the cabin. Ditto goes off somewhere, and Grovyle and Alana begin their preparations to leave. They hadn’t intended to stay long to begin with, so it goes quickly. There’s little to do except pack up their blankets and supplies, and separate all the stuff they intend to sell.

There’s no town nearby that she knows of. If there was, they could probably find a pair of Kecleon and be done. Unfortunately, it’s far more likely that they’ll have to sell everything on the go, in a dungeon, and only if they chance upon someone who’s willing to buy. So sometimes it’s more prudent to just ditch things to save space.

Alana calls him over and smooths out the map on the floor. “Show me again where this library is?”

The map is well-drawn, if a little cramped. It’s not the biggest sheet of parchment, but they can make do. She’s the one who had found it and bought it. The artist’s signature is a footprint in green paint, and the letter _S;_ it’s quite a lovingly rendered map of the continent, and they even included the surrounding isles—including her own. Their current location is represented by a smattering of little mountains, but with no indication of Limestone Cavern or the jungle at all (probably because it’s so small).

Grovyle points to an area a little bit to the south, a cave that the artist deemed important enough to highlight. “Here it is. Aegis Mountain. Whoever painted must’ve had the good sense to know it was a very valuable location, because it was actually quite harder to find than the map would suggest.”

“What do you mean?”

“It’s sequestered away in the mountains, in an out-of-the-way spot. I think this map may be one of the only recordings of its existence, because none of the others I’ve seen have it.”

“Alright. It’s settled.” She rolls up the map and ties it with a leather cord, tucking it away in the safest pocket of her bag. She can’t shake the peculiar weirdness that always creeps in when they’re getting ready to leave a campsite. She thinks maybe it’s because she misses her home—her tribe, the ice, the energy crystals that she spent so much of her time studying. She hasn’t been home in a long time.

 _We’ll be back,_ she thinks, and gives the cabin one last glance. She hurries to catch up to Grovyle, who’s gone ahead, and together they leave the mountains and their shadows behind.

  
  


When they’d originally split up to check out their separate places, neither of them strayed too far from the other. That was deliberate, settled out beforehand, so that if something went south, the remaining partner would only be a few miles’ journey away and could get backup. When Alana was asking Ditto about temporary sanctuary, Grovyle was looking for Aegis—and he did have to _look_ , because its placement on the map is only an approximation. Now, with the pair of them working together, and having knowledge about their destination beyond a simple map mark, the journey goes much faster.

They’ve been following the coast, a dark beach where the water barely even licked at the shore. Not so unlike her own, but mildly warmer. She’s not sure why. The ocean, rocking against itself, makes very little noise, but every sound is magnified over the black water. It’s lovely, and it’s peaceful.

They pause under a rocky overhang crusted over with brine. Alana wipes the sand from her boots and from the grooves between her armor. Grovyle climbs nimbly up the rock face, using that reptilian ability to stick to surfaces as a way to scout the land ahead.

He clambers back down soundlessly after a moment. “There’s a valley ahead, ringed by hills and small mountains. It’s there.” Alana clips her lamp to her belt and they set out.

The valley is…she supposes it would be beautiful if it weren’t so still, but then, that’s the case with most things. Wildflowers dot the grass in flurries. Grovyle weaves them in between hills in seemingly random patterns. She’s not sure which mountain it is, and the terrain mostly all looks the same. Finally, she sees a stone construct peeking out from the base of a mountain.

They reach the mouth of the cave, and Alana can immediately see that it was built into a temple. A scattering of flagstones leads into the mountain, flanked on either side by long-unlit torches. Atop the high beam, a single word is carved into the stone: _AEGIS._

“Aegis Mountain?” she wonders aloud.

Grovyle shrugs. “That’s what I’ve been calling it, but its name isn’t exactly well-known. Could be Aegis Temple, or Aegis Cave, or even Aegis Library—though I don’t think the library was intended for regular people.”  
“Regular people?” she counters, amused, as he walks ahead. She wouldn’t exactly count two rogues intent on changing the future as _regular people._

He turns his head back to give her a searching glance. “Is that not what we are?”

Alana contemplates the question. _Does this truly set us apart from the rest? Would anyone else do what we’re trying to do, if they could?_ She thinks not, but shrugs anyway. “I guess so.”

He chortles. “Although, maybe your case is special. Look, we’ve reached the entrance to the dungeon proper.”

“My case?”

“Human,” is the only elaboration he gives before stepping into the significantly smaller passageway. She ducks in behind him and immediately sees a scattering of stones on the floor, their line of conversation forgotten for the moment. 

“Whoa. Are these the runestones you were talking about earlier?” she asks, picking one up. Engraved on it is the letter _T_ in the Unown alphabet. 

He comes around her shoulder and gives it a glance. “Keep that one. We need enough to spell _Ice, Rock,_ and _Steel._ I’m hoping the puzzle hasn’t reset since I was here, but I don’t know how long it lasts.”

She examines the stone in her palm, noting the depth of the carving, and then pockets it. They’re small enough to fit into the bag with little difficulty, but she might as well try to cram them into her pockets first. 

The cave _is_ a dungeon, but it’s significantly easier than Limestone Cavern—and Limestone Cavern was _easy_. The randomness aspect of the twists and turns help, even, because it’d probably be a huge pain in the ass if the corridors weren’t randomly generating, twisting and turning and constantly conjuring new stones into existence. The dungeon, also, only has unown; they’re sort of hostile in that a stray unown would attack if they caught sight of the pair, but otherwise they kept in groups, clinging to the high ceilings and muttering some otherworldly chant. She hadn’t noticed them at first because they were so quiet, but as Alana and Grovyle fall into comfortable silence, it’s impossible to ignore the ancient energy.

To her immense surprise, the first puzzle chamber appears after just three floors. It’s the same as the rest of the cave, except there are no unown singing their echoing song high above. It’s strange, now that she's come to expect it.

“This place is weird,” she mutters, more to herself than Grovyle. She can feel, under her long sleeves, the hairs on her arms standing up. It’s cold, colder than the rest of the cave. There’s a stone marker in the center of the room, and on it, engraved the words: _If you seek passage, close your eyes and submit your proof._

Grovyle takes a bracing breath. “There are three guardians, and an ominous stone statue at the bottom, guarding the library. The guardians may ask for a fight again, even though they’ve met me before. I’m not sure. In that case, you should probably stay back.”

“Hey, I’m like, twice your weight and way taller than you. If someone needs tackling, you’re not gonna find a girl more suited to it than me.”

“I know.” He catches her hand in his, and she can’t stay indignant. “But trust me, these things are not like regular pokemon. I’ve never seen anything like them. You’ll see.”

She sighs. “I trust you. And I know you’ve fought them once before, by yourself. But there are very few pokemon I can’t do significant damage to by body-slamming or even stabbing them, if it comes down to it.”

“That’s precisely the point,” he says, shrewdly. “They are _exactly_ the pokemon you won’t be able to damage normally, even with your knives and all the weight behind the strike you can muster.”

She balks at his reply, but holds back her doubts for now. “Ready when you are, then.”

“Could you give me the stones? The ones for _ice._ ” She fishes them out and obediently hands them over. “Right, then. Close your eyes.”

She does. The goosebumps rise again, unbidden, as he places them in their slots. A heavier chill bears down on them, and there’s a rumble, and then nothing. She opens her eyes with the disjointed sense of someone who has had them closed for a long time, even though it’s only been a few seconds. Drowsiness pulls at her.

A new staircase had appeared, descending further into the chilliness of the cave. She debates pulling out her lamp but decides against it, shifting from foot to foot in anticipation. From the lip of the stairs, a clutch of cold, stale air settles around them.

The floor below them isn’t part of the dungeon proper. It’s another cavernous room. In the center, as if waiting for them, stands a gigantic golem. It’s cut from blocks of ice, geometric in shape. A collection of dots make up the eyes, glowing yellow; when Alana and Grovyle step forward they all blink in random patterns.

“IF YOU WANT TO GO ON, SHOW THAT YOU HAVE THE POWER.”

She knows Grovyle told her to stay back. She knows this, and yet as the golem stands there, stock-still, she wants to make a move. Grovyle surges forward, reaching out and extending his arms with the motion. She hears rather than sees the leaf blades connect, a blinding spark of light as they ring off the icy surface of the pokemon’s body. Its triangular fingertips rotate, and a beam of pure white cold shoots out. Grovyle dodges easily out of the way as if he’d been expecting it. 

_He fought this by himself?_

Alana winces. He has nothing particularly effective to deal with the guardian, and ice will hurt him if it connects. She readies her stance. Gauntlets may not do much, but it’s better than nothing.

Knees bent, she charges. It ignored her until she made a move, but now it turns its body towards her, blinking those dotted yellow eyes. Heedless of her rush, it extends an arm, but Grovyle smashes into it from the side and shatters it into particles. 

The guardian lets out a thundering bellow at the same time her blow connects somewhere on its side. The studs padding her knuckles grind into the ice with a horrible noise. She ignores it, gritting her teeth and pressing until she hears a crack. 

_Got you._ With her right hand, she flicks out a knife and stabs the ice directly in the cracked area, dislodging more pieces. She backpedals when its other arm moves to slam into her ribs. The air settling around it gets even colder, so cold it seems to suck the moisture right from her lips.

A piece of ice lands on her bare cheek, and instead of melting, it dries and numbs her skin. She fights the urge to cough. She stumbles backwards, away from its close range, but it only gets ready to fire another one of its ice beams at her.

“ _Get away!”_ Grovyle snarls, and she’s never seen him this frenzied before. He barrels right into her, knocking her into the ground and out of the way of the blast. He’s back up before she even registers the texture of the grit.

He smashes the other arm to bits. She doesn’t quite see how he does it. His arms are a blur, white light bleeding from the golem’s shoulders. His elbow, blades and all, land viciously in the center of its face.

It wobbles, limbless except for the two points hovering above the ground that pass for its feet. Grovyle lands back in front of her, breathing hard. She’s up now, fists raised, but it’s over.

“I YIELD.” 

The parts of its body Alana and Grovyle had worked so hard to destroy rise from the corners of the room they’d been scattered to, reforming and stitching themselves back to solid mass. When the thing is done, the golem stands before them whole again. Then, with another flash of light, it disappears and leaves a staircase down in its wake.

She expects Grovyle to round on her immediately, give her a lecture for not listening. Instead, now composed, he turns to her with chilling calmness. “Are you hurt?”

This is somehow worse. So she gets right to the point. “Are you mad at me?”

“Are. You. Hurt.”

“Not badly. My shoulder will probably bruise from the fall, but that’s it,” she admits. She knows what’s coming and can’t help but flinch when it does, withering under his glare.

“I told you to stay out of the way! You _promised_ you would stay out of the way!”

“I didn’t promise anything! What did you expect me to do?” she snaps. “You are _fucking_ crazy if you thought I was going to let you fight it by yourself!” She feels like she’s about to cry. Her throat closes up. She hates crying.

“I already have fought it by myself! And the other two, for that matter!”

 _Like I haven’t already internally kicked myself for letting you do that,_ she almost says, but that’s a conversation for another day. “Look.” She pinches the bridge of her nose, sighing deeply. “We are partners _._ We are a team _._ Could you get it into your lizard brain that I’m trying to help you, not trying to get myself killed?”

“And normally, I would be fine with that.” he steps forward, entreating. “But these are legends. These guardians—they’re not pushovers. And you’re not a pokemon.”

“And you’re not immune to getting hit by a giant rock and getting all your bones broken, or getting frozen out by an ice beam, yet here we are anyway. There are risks to what we do. You know that. You’ve always known that.”

“We’ve also never had to fight a legendary pokemon before.”

“So what, I’m not allowed to be worried for you, but you’re allowed to be worried for me?”

He doesn’t respond at first, and Alana uses the pause as an opportunity to continue, gentler this time. “Please don’t try to shield me from this. I understand your concerns. And, if it helps, I’ll try to stay out of the way. But this is every bit my mission as yours, and you can’t expect me to promise not to fight.”

He sighs. “Alright. I guess that’s all I can ask for. But,” he continues sharply, “if you sustain any serious injuries, I want you hiding from those golems. You can’t do anything if you’re hurt.”

Alana’s mouth twists into a wry smile. “Ok, ok. Don’t get hurt. Got it.” She turns, already heading for the stairs, and sees him rolling his eyes in her periphery. “Seriously though, what _is_ the next guardian? Rock or Steel?”

To her surprise, the next floor isn’t covered in ice. It’s much warmer, though significantly more humid as well. “Rock,” he answers from behind her. “Which means I’m much more suited for taking it down than you.”

“Can’t argue with that,” she mumbles.

And, indeed, the floor would give it away as such. It looks much more like an unassuming, normal cave—except for the swarms of unown crowding the high ceilings. Every now and then one of them breaks off from the larger group and floats to the floor, ignoring the pair unless it caught sight of them with its one unsettling eye. In which case it would try to attack, and then Alana would take a swing at it and send it flying into the wall, stunned. She excelled at hitting things. She was so good at hitting things that she almost hit Grovyle a few times; that’s how good she was at hitting things. She hit things with gusto. 

The rocks were just as easy to collect the second time around. In fact, they even had some letters from the ice floors that would work for the rock and steel floors. By the time they’d traveled down the second staircase, they had almost everything they needed to pass both this chamber and the next. 

They reach the second puzzle room in the same amount of time it’d taken to reach the first. The same stone marker, with the same words: _If you seek passage, close your eyes and submit your proof._ Without prompting, Alana reaches into her bag and finds the letters they need. Grovyle steps aside to let her do it this time.

She fits them into the circular grooves; they fit perfectly, of course. _Rock._ She closes her eyes when the _K_ is firmly in place, and the uneasy heart-racing feeling is back. She feels dizzy momentarily, like passing out after standing up too quickly. Unconsciously she reaches her hand out, as if to steady herself on the stone marker, but it’s gone. Her eyes snap open. A staircase is in its place. She wobbles, and Grovyle is immediately bracing her side, supporting her arm over his shoulders and taking some of her weight.

“Why do I feel tired,” she tries to ask, but it comes out as more of a mumble. 

“Get down,” he commands, and she sinks slowly to a knee. He follows her. “This is the second time you’ve been randomly dizzy in a dungeon. I’m worried about you.”

“It’s nothing. I just…lost my balance for a moment…” Blackness swallows her eyesight. She leans heavily on him, nauseous, and then nothing.

_In front of her is a gargantuan creature, resembling, yet several times larger than, the ice guardian. It sits on a heavy throne, and moss grows at its feet. It’s the color of rust, and it looks very, very old._

_“Greetings, human. I am the Librarian of Aegis Cave.”_

_It speaks without speaking, a ringing voice in her mind while its many-dotted face clicks in strange and unknowable patterns. Uncertainly, she takes a knee and bows her head. “Greetings, Librarian. How may I help you?”_

_“I have permitted the one you travel with here before, but he does not know of me. Nor will I reveal myself to anyone but you. I have but one question: what are your intentions?”_

_She wavers, raising her head slightly, but immediately lowers it again. Her heart spikes with anxiety. “My intentions?”_

_“It is a simple question. It has been countless ages since I’ve seen a human. I wish to know what you intend to use this knowledge for.”_

_“We’re looking-” she pauses. She wishes she had Grovyle here, in this communication. “We want to find information about the three lakes. We seek the Time Gears, Librarian.” She stops talking, afraid to divulge too much information._

_“I sense you are holding something back,” the Librarian responds, “but that is a worthy cause for knowledge. I will ask one more time: what are your intentions with my library?”_

_All or nothing. “We want to fix the planet’s paralysis. We believe that if we speak to the guardians of the Time Gears, we can find a way to do that.”_

_Something throbs at the corner of her eyes. At first she’s afraid she’s angered the Librarian, but then the vision starts to dissolve at the corners, and she knows she’s waking up. She scrambles to her feet in a panic, but her height is puny compared to the guardian._

_“Very well. If you make it past the guardians, I ask that when you leave, you take nothing with you.”_

_Before she can agree or ask more questions, the dream dissolves completely._

Alana wakes up all at once. She sits up as fast as she can, still shocked, and Grovyle doesn’t move to stop her. She’s still right where she passed out, and he’s watching her with sharp eyes. He doesn’t say anything. With both of them sitting down like this, and slouched as she is, he’s nearly the same height as her.

He’s pretty good at leveraging his intimidation when he wants to. He’s doing it now, calculating her uneasiness. Wondering how long she’s been like this and hasn’t said anything.

“It.” She swallows. Her throat is so dry. “It hasn’t happened before Limestone Cavern, I swear.”

“But it’s the same as then?” He doesn’t sound angry. Just…quietly alarmed.

“Not really.” He listens intently as she explains. “Last time, it was more like a vision that I wasn’t participating in. You were there, but we couldn’t see each other. This time, I saw a pokemon. I didn’t know its name, but we had a conversation. It introduced itself as…the Librarian.”

“The Librarian? You’re sure?” Alana can sense his doubt. “I never met anyone like that when I was here before.”

“I know. It told me you wouldn’t know, if you can believe that. Honestly, all it did was ask me why I was here. So I told it the truth.”

“Alana…is that wise?”  
“I think so.” She rubs her temples. The pain is almost completely gone. “I wasn’t about to lie to someone that powerful and ancient. I may be heretical, but I’m not an idiot. Besides, I think it was pleased with me. All it did was ask us not to take anything once we were inside of the library.”

He hummed, clearly sitting with that information for a moment. “I’m more worried about you than anything. Are you going to collapse on me every time we go through any mildly interesting dungeon?”

 _Maybe. “_ No,” she says. “Besides, I’m fine now. My headache’s gone. We can go fight it now.” She casts her eyes to the staircase leading down to the area where the next guardian is.

He looks her over again. “You’re very sure? I don’t want you to get hurt in there because you insisted on rushing in.”

“Grovyle. You are the most impatient person on the planet. I know _you_ did not just accuse _me_ of ‘rushing in.’”

He laughs. “Being impatient is a good quality, my friend. I never miss out.”

“If anything, you miss out because you’re always going. But for once, I’m agreeing with your lifestyle, so don’t get your leaves in a twist.”

His good humor seems to have returned as she picks herself up off the ground, brushing the dust from her pants. She feels a wave of relief that he was still able to trust her with this. She lets him lead the way down the staircase, to the big room where the second guardian waits.

It says the same thing as the first. “IF YOU WANT TO GO ON, SHOW THAT YOU HAVE THE POWER.”

She sizes it up quickly. Its body looks to be made of boulders; the same for its arms. It’s much more solid than the ice golem was. Those are the only observations she has time for before it raises an arm brimming with psychic power and shoots several stones their way.

She dodges out of the way just barely. One pebble, straying from the rest, hits her squarely in the leg. It bounces harmlessly off her greaves, and she mentally adds to the tally of how many times her armor has saved her ass.

Grovyle begins his assault. His arms, aglow with green energy, lash out at the pokemon. It stands its ground and takes the resulting hit, which hardly seems to faze it. 

Its yellow eyes blink out for a second, then come back on all at once. In retaliation it raises its arm again to try and crush Grovyle. But he’s fast, and the guardian is clumsy. It can’t move its giant body very quickly; Grovyle has plenty of time to reposition. 

Alana keeps her distance. As it was with the ice guardian, she thinks this one’s weak points are its arms. They’re made of several smaller boulders, where the central body is one solid mass.

She darts forward on the opposite side of Grovyle’s attack, but it just thrashes in an effort to keep them from getting too close. More stones begin to levitate, and she knows another volley is coming. 

She gets behind it, out of its line of sight, and kicks it in her nearest approximation of a back. It stumbles forward, quickly regaining footing on its short legs, but it had already lost concentration. The rocks quiver in the air, and then clatter to the floor. 

Grovyle takes his opening. He slices neatly underneath the shoulder of the pokemon, breaking off the link between its torso and arm. Weight now unbalanced, it wobbles and crashes to the floor. Alana dives for the other arm and starts tearing off rocks, pulling at the invisible energy link holding the arm together.

She’s about at the elbow when there’s a brilliant flash of light, and it’s gone. She whips her head around, searching for a trick, but both the boulders she’d pulled apart and the arm Grovyle had severed were nowhere to be seen. A disembodied voice floats through the chamber: “I YIELD.” Then, silence.

Alana catches her breath, breathing hard. When her and Grovyle’s eyes meet again, she flashes him a wily grin. “That went way better than the first time.”

He is not immune to her joy, it seems, because he agrees with her. “I know. I didn’t expect to take it down so quickly or so decisively.”

“Told you I was up for it,” she says, and can’t keep the smugness out of her voice.

“Don’t push it.”

She laughs and flourishes her cape dramatically. “After you, good sir.”

As they descend into the final layer of the cave, the terrain changes once again. The brown-colored stone transforms into something harder and darker, like cold steel. The natural glow of the dungeon is even dimmer than before. She gets the sense that they’re forging into the very deepest trenches of the earth.

There are fewer unown here, too. They’re plentiful, but not like they were in the upper levels. Collecting the stones now would be a daunting task if they didn’t already have most of what they needed. On the bright side, they’re getting attacked less, so Alana doesn’t have to whack as many unown around. 

Their usual rhythm was to have Alana take point as the bigger of the two, and Grovyle would watch their backs. This works well most of the time, and that's especially true right now. She feels invigorated after that last fight; all the fatigue from her communication with the Librarian is gone.

_There’s only one left: Steel._

In the third and final puzzle room, she lets Grovyle do the honors (She’s partly afraid of fainting again). If she falls on him one more time, she might die of embarrassment. Luckily, she does not, and the stairs appear just as they should. The steel pokemon is waiting for them at the bottom, and it looks—in all honesty—like a pile of garbage.

It lacks the simple elegance of the ice guardian, or the tough ruggedness of the rock one. It’s just… a smooth plane of steel, shaped into a round creature standing on two stubby legs. It doesn’t move when they step forward, just says the cursory words: “IF YOU WANT TO GO ON, SHOW THAT YOU HAVE THE POWER.”

As Alana and Grovyle slip into stance, there’s just one thing that worries her.

The arms are different from ones on the ice and rock golems. They’re connected to the main body, not tenuously or with energy, but by real, solid steel. Which means that breaking them off to immobilize the pokemon is out of the question.

“Well, seems like we need a new strategy,” she mutters. “How’d you do it last time?”

“I dug a hole,” Grovyle says.

The arms shoot out. They extend all the way across the room, lengthening to try and grab both of them at once. Surprised, Alana flinches away, but she suffers a glancing punch to her side. It’s enough to make her double over, pain radiating out.

“What?” she hisses. _It’s made of steel! How the fuck can it-_

“I dug a hole!” Grovyle repeats. He’d managed to avoid the first blow, but didn’t bother trying to attack the arm that’d reached out. They both retract back to their normal size, and the guardian doesn’t move from its still position.

“How did you—nevermind, actually. What do you need me to do?” She staggers a little bit, but she’s relieved she can still breathe. If it’d winded her, she’d be a lot more prone right now.

“It’s not going to move. Keep your distance, don’t get hit, and wait for me,” is all he instructs her to do, and then he digs a hole.

He’s fast. A few clawfuls of dirt and stone and he’d vanished completely under the hard ground. She turns her attention to the golem in time to see its arm hurtling toward her again. She ducks, turning her shoulder towards it slightly as she darts forward. If it connects, it’ll hit her pauldron instead of her chest.

It misses completely. Unfortunately, the other arm advances as the first retreats. Instead of falling back into the wall (where she’ll lose mobility), she lunges forward and hunches in on herself, squeezing in between both arms. They lock together and reel her in. Panicking, she drops to the ground and rolls.

For the first time today, Alana is completely on the defensive. She can’t damage it. She can barely outsmart it. Fear bubbles up and threatens to choke her. A scream tears from her throat at the exact second its steely fist crashes into the floor right next to her head.

“ _Grovyle!”_

Without warning, the arms retreat. She heaves herself up, scrambling in the dust to regain her bearings. And then she sees it, teeter-tottering on its barely-there legs as holes upen up in the ground right below it.

One of the guardian’s round feet snags on a rock. It anchors its arms into the dirt on either side in a desperate bid for stability. The little holes expand into one big hole, and that hole grows continually, yawning into itself. Pebbles clatter down. Then the first arm is dislodged; the second follows immediately after, and the guardian’s heavy body falls into the pit of Grovyle’s making.

He pops up near her, smudged head to foot in dirt. “Sorry I took so long.”

“it’s fine,” she says, trying not to sound as shaken as she feels. She edges forward, intending to get a look at the fallen pokemon, but the flash of light comes first. When it fades, the hole and the golem are gone.

“I YIELD.”

The staircase opens up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A wonder beyond man's knowledge.  
> People of the world, so small, feel fear.  
> That form is the field of battle.
> 
> -from Inhuman Illusory Soul Fusion Magic by J.A. Seazer  
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_tuZLbyS4Y&ab_channel=Kaninin


End file.
